Sad story

Moving up here was pretty dramatic. Allen brought up the Mistral with the boat and accidentally put petrol in it instead of diesel. He was held up for 3 -4 hours at Bombay. I drove the car up but was too scared to drive on Auckland's motorways so David met me at Hamilton's bus stop and drove to his place in Torbay from whence I drove up to Whangarei. All went well except that our caged cat, Fatso, squealed all the way to the cattery. When I left David I put her cage on the passenger seat and stroked her thought the bars but she still protested. NOW she so very happy. She was in a cattery for about a month and has settled down far better than we have.

The sad story is that I was tempted to take up a long term relieving job at a local boys school. It appeared in the paper the week we got here and was for a woman who was sick with cancer. I felt I was fated to do it. Alas, it was too much for me, I suffered from acute anxiety after about 6 weeks and left after 8. I felt very ashamed and depressed - a very bad start for my new life.

Funnily enough, a friend who also started at a Northland school in term 2 (in a more planned way) also had a horrible start to her work up here. She has survived but only just. I'm not complaining about the school which was pretty good really but I found the kids difficult. It's weird that we both felt the same thing.

I can't afford to really retire - without relieving and can only hope that the disaster I experienced doesn't spoil my reputation or confidence. In a strange twist of fate another job has come up at a private school - it's not so long term and sounds like a lovely job - I hope to meet the people concerned this coming week.

Stormy weather

The weather is so bad that it's comforting to be inside a warm house looking out at the trees swaying in the wind. It was rare to get wind this strong in Rotorua.

We get a lot of traffic noise here because although we are some distance above the main road north, the sound travels up. But with the wind and rain we can't hear it at all. We didn't notice how loud it was when we first looked at the house and in fact, most of the houses we shortlisted had traffic noise. Here, the roads are often in the valleys and the houses on the slopes above. Moreover, Whangarei has the most amazing traffic desnity for a small city.

We finally bought a house in Woodhill which is the suburb nestled under the western hills and above Western Hills Drive. The hills have a rich bush covering - lots of totara with their rounded tops giving the hillsides a lush look when the sun shines on them. We were impressed by an old house up the road but it was too much of a do-up. then when we saw this for sale - just down the road- we were predisposed to like it. It's a compact townhouse on a 455 sqare meter section with a good feel to it, and cheaper than everything else so we decided to buy it. We were desperate to settle down and thought maybe it would do us for a couple of years.

The map above shows the bush behind us. We are near the Glendale Rd Scenic Reserve.

Phew!

We've been pretty lucky with the weather. There hasn't been as much rain as forecast but today takes the cake. We went to a garden centre on a hill at Maunu and even with a woollen cardigan on I was too cold to look at the plants. Now it is hosing down. Fortunately this house seems to spring no leaks at all even in the heaviest rain. And yesterday we got in hours of gardening - not at our little place but at a friend's. She bought a property with far too large a garden for a single busy person so four of us got stuck into the vege patch and had it cleared in 3 - 4 hours.

We have a little vege garden here but now I want more land...

Winter in the North - it exists

By the end of March we were up here but without a house to move into. We were able to stay in Ngunguru - a sort of house sitting arrangement for 2 -3 weeks and in a friend's basement also for the odd night. I think we tried too hard to find a house and to gain a cash buyer advantage. In the end we were quite desperate. Our cat was in a cattery, our goods were in storage, I needed work. We really should have rented but we had quite a lot of offers of places to stay.

We made two offers from Rotorua - one didn't really get off the ground but they wouldn't or couldn't come down to our price. Fair enough - we were trying to get a coastal property for $300,000. One was at Tameterau about 14 k from town around the harbour and one at Ruakaka. Neither was ideal - one steep with road noise (but close to the water and lovely) and the other was a mortgagee show home sale - big house on small section with lots of the built in appliances ripped out like oven and hot water cylinder!

More later

So much water under bridge

Since I last blogged we have sold our house, bought another one and moved in. I took on a long term relieving job for three terms but lasted only 8 weeks. After the euphoria of finally selling, we had the tumult of deciding on a house to buy, moving in and then the chill of winter and the misery of my little breakdown.

We moved in here, Woodhill, Whangarei on 15 April. By mid May we were hit with an uncharacteristic cold period with 2 - 3 frosts and a cold house after we removed the old night storage heater when we recarpeted. The house isn't insulated underneath - would be quite easy to do once the subsidies are up and running. But the irony of coming to the North where is is obviously much warmer than Rotorua and then feeling the cold MORE is remarkable.

We have a heat pump now - very warm - but expensive. However, the gas heater and electric heaters were costing us a lot so in the end we'll get some of the cost back - Genesis will give us a $300 credit on our electricity bill so there are some mitigating factors.

More later.